


it doesn't mean there's nowhere to begin

by austen



Category: Life
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 14:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/austen/pseuds/austen





	it doesn't mean there's nowhere to begin

**1\. snow patrol - headlights on dark roads**

The car shifts into gear with an accompanying revv of the engine. His eyes follow the needle of the speedometer as it starts to move to the right. Sixty, seventy, seventy-five. Reese's hands are hard on the wheel and her eyes are hard on the road. He clears his throat. He doesn't want her to take her eyes away, but things are getting narrower by the second.

"Don't you think you should--"

"_Crews_," she says, and in that word, there are a million others.

He leans back in his seat, closes his eyes, and her gaze turns to the rearview mirror while he practices his breathing.

Right when he hits the tenth count, her foot shifts to the brake.

 

**2\. scissor sisters - take me out**

It's hard for her to hear anything over the speakers blaring in the corner. There's bodies pressed together, gyrating to the beat, and they practically have to climb the walls to navigate through. Crews stays close to her, enough for her to feel the barely-there wisp of his jacket's fabric against her own each time they squeeze through another cluster of people.

Someone spills a drink in front of her and she smells the heavy scent of tequila, burning thick in her nostrils.

Crews puts a hand on her back, and she turns away from temptation.

"Crews, I'm--"

"He's this way," he murmurs, and in the time it takes them to get to Nebikov, Reese lets him lead.

 

**3\. howie day - ghost**

Mornings burn lazy and hot in the summer, which isn't usually so much of a problem for Crews most days. Except today, it's hot enough for a blackout, and that leads to a power outage so bad that the A/C conks out before eight a.m.

"They're not sending anyone out until five," Ted mutters, slamming the phone down on the kitchen's island. Crews stands shirtless, peeling a mango with his knife.

"So?" He shrugs around a bite of fruit. "Go take a swim."

Ted narrows his eyes at him, and all Crews can do is smile. He drops the fruit into a bowl of others he's finished cutting, brings it out to the back.

Slowly, he sets it down on the pool's edge, remembers to leave the blade there, too - as a kind of afterthought.

Right as he dives in, Reese's name pops up on his cell phone, ringing in the deck chair.

 

**4\. patty griffin - rain**

Heat gives way to rain, but not right away. The first drops hit Reese's shoulders as they run back to the car, and by the time the car doors slam shut, there's practically a monsoon going on out there. The drive back to the station is long; the first couple hours on the road during a storm are always the worst, and every time the car's tires hit a big puddle, Reese mutters a curse under her breath.

There aren't any parking spaces close in the garage, so they have to park on the roof. As they run to the overhang for a bit of respite, Reese realizes that he isn't following her anymore.

She blinks through the rain and watches him standing out there in it, holding his arms up to the sky, his eyes squinted shut against the pounding drops.

"Crews! What are you doing?"

"Reese," he says, barely audible over the storm. "Reese, come on. It's amazing. You can feel every single one."

Against all her better judgment, she takes a step, out from the shelter.

Crews finds her hand, and slowly, Reese looks up.

 

**5\. bono &amp; secret machines - i am the walrus**

"You're kidding," she says.

"I'm not kidding," he says.

"He was stabbed with a _walrus_ tusk."

"Apparently it was sharpened," Crews points out as he bites into a Golden Delicious. "I don't know if that helps any. I mean, they're strong enough to cut into three feet of ice in nature. I don't think human flesh is a whole lot tougher."

"Where do you learn this stuff?" Reese asks, as they walk under the overhanging sign of the Los Angeles Zoo.

"Had a lot of time to read," he says, tossing the apple's core into a nearby trash can.

"Right."

When he starts getting distracted by the flamingo exhibit, Reese practically yanks his arm off in the opposite direction.

"This isn't a field trip, Crews."

"Did you know flamingos are only pink because they feed on shrimp?"

 

**6\. hale - here tonight**

The knock on his door comes at three in the morning. Ted shouts something indecipherable from his room, but it sounds an awful lot like, _it's your house you can answer the damn door_. He's been awake for twenty minutes already, so he shucks on a T-shirt and heads down the winding staircase.

Another knock comes again when he's inches from the doorknob.

"Crews." She's in uniform, but she's tried to hide the hints of bedhead by pulling her hair back, and her badge shines bright against her belt. Crews blinks twice.

"Why haven't you been answering your phone? I called you three times."

She doesn't cross the threshhold, hands on her hips as she looks at him with an expectant yet annoyed expression. He gnaws the inside of his cheek.

"You know, I was wondering why I hadn't heard it ring in a while."

"Did you charge it?"

"Charge it?"

"The _battery_, Crews. You have to charge the battery in your phone, or else it dies."

"Oh. No, I didn't charge it."

"Thought so." Reese keeps looking at him.

"What do you need? Do you want to come in? I don't have a lot of food, but I have fruit. Do you want some fruit, Reese? I could probably go for a papaya, but I don't think we have any of those. Maybe a pear. I know we have a few of those."

"No, Crews, I don't want some fruit." She's tapping her fingers against her hip. "What I want you to do is change and meet me outside in five. We've got to _go_."

"Okay." He leaves her standing there in the doorway as he hurries upstairs. Halfway up, he pokes his head down over the railing.

"Can we stop for papaya on the way?"

 

**7\. gomez - girlshapedlovedrug**

_She's a wicked girl, worst in all the world_, the radio sings, and Crews is about to switch it back to one of his tapes when he notices Reese. She's tapping the wheel in time with the drumbeat, bobbing her head slightly, barely mouthing the words.

"You know the song?"

Immediately, the tapping and mouthing stops.

"No," she says, smile disappearing from her face.

"It's okay if you want to sing, Reese. I've heard you hum before, and it's actually a very pleasant sound. I imagine your singing voice would be equally pleasant." He knows she's glaring at him even while she keeps looking ahead, eyes covered by her aviators.

"I think it would be very cathartic if you decided to sing," he adds. "You seem like a person who needs that kind of a release."

"Okay. Crews? We will not, nor will we _ever_, discuss the kind of release that I may or may not be needing. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Reese," he says, cheerful despite her lack thereof.

 

"You know, sex can often be a very beneficial--"

"_Crews_!"

 

**8\. lincoln hawk - everytime**

He's picking up some takeout. He doesn't really want Chinese, but Ted insisted, and he figures it's better to get along with the man handling his financial matters than to make him mad. As he turns into the restaurant, he sees a familiar head of hair moving in the opposite direction.

"Reese," he says, and she turns quickly, hair brushing over one shoulder as she nearly drops the clutch in her hand.

"Crews." She sounds genuinely surprised to see him, adjusting the strap of the black dress she's wearing.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm picking up some food. What are you doing here, Reese?"

"She's with me." They both turn; Tidwell's sticking his wallet back in his pocket, and when Crews turns back to Reese, she can't meet his eyes.

"Reese," he says, quietly, but the thought's gone when his order's called out.

"We're _leaving_," she snaps, heels clacking on the floor as she ducks out through the front. Tidwell shrugs apologetically in that _you know, women_ way, and as Crews takes the large brown bag in one hand, he passes money across the counter with a smile that's just a little too wide.

The food's tossed out the window onto the side of I-210, and when he gets back to the house, his hands are empty.

"What happened to the food?" Ted asks, his stomach growling noisily.

"They lost it," Crews answers plainly, and heads upstairs without another word.

 

**9\. sia - breathe me**

The morning after Nebikov's funeral, Crews gets dressed for work without a tie. Instead, he picks another shirt: one of the button-downs he likes to wear off-duty, the sleeves rolled up to reveal arms that are tanned as much as they are freckled.

He doesn't know who he's expecting to see when he walks onto the elevator (Seever, maybe, with her overattention to detail and her drafting of that fifteen-year plan), but it isn't Reese, looking thin and pale under her jacket.

He shifts his feet. She doesn't look up from hers.

When he reaches out to touch her shoulder, he can tell it's taking all her energy not to flinch away.

"Crews," she whispers.

The elevator is empty when he reaches to press the button that stops the movement. Her hand slides up to cover his. His eyes follow her arm all the way up to her face. There's a small bruise there, under her left eye. He doesn't know how he could've missed it. He's described her face plenty of times, knows every facet. _How_ did he miss something like this - he brushes the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone.

She leans into his hand.

"Crews," she says again. Her eyes are glittering.

"Reese," he says, and when he pulls her into his arms, she goes without hesitation.

 

**10\. plumb - real life fairytale**

Autumn is still hot. He doesn't know how he could expect anything less, but it gives him an excuse to keep the pool open long after others have closed for the school year. He's sitting on the edge, pants rolled up to the knee, feet absently swaying in the water.

"How often do you clean that thing?"

Reese stands over his shoulder, two smoothies in hand. She passes one off to him before taking a seat beside him, letting her feet tangle up alongside his under the blue surface.

He takes a sip through the straw and makes a pleased sound. "It's mango."

"I asked them to make it with real fruit," she says, stealing a sip from his. He points to hers, which she's left on the ledge next to her leg.

"What's that?"

"Coffee-flavored," she confesses, and grins as he wrinkles his nose.

"What's the matter, Crews? You're not a fan of iced cappuccino?"

"It's just, it's a smoothie," he adds, sucking on his straw with the side of his mouth. "The word alone implies fruit."

"So, does that mean if I were to kiss you right now, you wouldn't like it?" she asks, resting her chin on his shoulder and looking up at him with big brown eyes.

Slowly, he puts his own smoothie down, and she swings a leg over the both of his to straddle his lap, winding her arms around his neck. She smells like coffee, sure, but also the cocoa butter she likes to rub on her legs in the morning and the kiwi-scented shampoo he buys for her. He runs his hands over the smooth skin of her thighs, and when she kisses him, her lips and tongue are chilled against his skin.

For a moment, he can't speak.

"You okay?" she asks, nuzzling his cheek.

"Fine," he answers. "I think I could use a cooling-off, though."

Her eyes widen in warning.

"Crews, don't you _dare_."

It's too late; he uses all his weight to push them off the edge and into the water. She clings to him, warmth and wet clothes, and splashes him once they resurface, pretending to be angry up until the moment he grabs her around the waist and presses her against the side of the pool to kiss her. Her legs wind around him again, keeping him pinned tight.

"Hey, whose smoothies?"

They both look up in time to see Ted, both cups in hand, taking sips from each straw in turn.

"Ours," Reese calls out.

Crews nods in agreement.

"Ours," he says.


End file.
